Unless it’s from the Po Valley region of Italy it’s just sparkling authoritarianism

That’s what Sam Moyn tells me anyway:

The FBI searched the Virginia state Senate leader’s office on Wednesday as part of a corruption investigation, a person familiar with the matter said.

The search at Virginia Sen. L. Louise Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth comes after the Democrat helped lead the state’s recent redistricting effort. . . .

Though the exact nature of the investigation was unclear, the search comes as the FBI and Justice Department have opened a spate of politically charged investigations into perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump.

Last week, for instance, the Justice Department charged former FBI Director James Comey with making a threatening Instagram post against Trump, an accusation that Comey — who for nearly a decade has drawn the president’s ire — has denied. A separate mortgage fraud case, ultimately dismissed by a court, targeted Democratic New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who had brought a major civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business.

The FBI and Justice Department have also provoked concerns among Democrats regarding ongoing election-related investigations, including the seizure by agents of ballots and other information from Fulton County, Georgia.

Amid a national, state-by-state partisan redistricting fight kicked off by Trump’s desire to aid his fellow Republicans, Virginia voters in April approved a Democrat-backed constitutional amendment authorizing new U.S. House districts. The plan could help the party win up to four additional seats.

Lucas has been a vocal leader of the effort.

“We are not going to let anyone tilt the system without a response,” she said after voters approved the map in April. Trump, meanwhile, denounced the results.

This is what the MAGA base wants. Trump is a symptom more than a cause, although he’s obviously both.